Every 15 years or so we seem to get another blues revival. Revivals imply something dead being brought back to life, which means the blues isn't considered a living, breathing musical form, but something frozen in time, and each successive generation that revives it is further removed from the cultural and spiritual milieu that gave rise to it.
Garrett Dutton, the former Philadelphia busker who goes by the stage name G. Love, means to forge a more direct link to that hallowed past. He performs like a front-porch bluesman, with a drawling delivery and loose-limbed impulsiveness. Onstage he mostly sits, his long legs bouncing around on the balls of his feet, head swiveling back-and-forth as if it were attached to his neck with ball-bearings.
At times this kind of thing comes uncomfortably close to minstrelsy, but while Love appreciates authenticity, he also acts his age. When he walked out on stage at Shibuya Club Quattro Jan. 25, the first thing the twentysomething did was hit skins with a bunch of fans up front, as if he had just stopped by the park on his way home from school to play some three-on-three. With a big knit cap pulled down over his ears and a big electric guitar riding high on his chest, he was Kid Blues.